Hurry Up...and Wait...

 I've heard about it for years, I've joked about it for years, the mantra of the military is hurry up and wait...But OMG is the hurry up and wait getting to me this time.

We know what the orders are

We know the dates

We can't actually do anything because the actual orders themselves haven't dropped.   I need to get little dude on the CDC wait list, we need to find out if military housing is a viable option or if we need to secure civilian housing, we need to schedule movers and ship hubbys car...so many things to do and none of them can be done yet.  So many different pieces that all rely on each other.  

So I'm doing my best to channel my stress into productive actions.  We know regardless of all the other stuff that we will be selling our house, so I've moved into full scale get this place ready to list mode.  We have gone through our entire bedroom and purged our wardrobes down to what could probably be considered minimalist capsule wardrobes at this point.  I have thrown out/donated pretty much anything that doesn't bring me joy in every room except our master bathroom and office, and now we are preparing to move on to minor painting and landscaping work.  

Today we have a sitter for little dude so I'm hoping we can finish our master bathroom (I don't even want to think about the expired/old makeup I'm about to throw out), office, and hopefully go through the 2 giant totes of hand me downs for little dude that I haven't looked at yet (They all start at size 3T so he isn't ready for them but I honestly have no clue what people have given us) today.  It's an ambitious goal but one I'm willing to work towards.

One of the sailors at Hubby's command tested positive for the plague last week, he was technically exposed but they were both masked and more than 6 feet apart plus hubby is vaccinated so we aren't overly concerned about it being brought into the house, however out of an abundance of caution he will be staying home Monday so I'm hoping he can scoot our china cabinet and bar out from the wall in our dining room and tape around the edges for me so that I can get the trim work in there painted this week.  Things are starting to move into a bit slower season for me at work so I should be able to sneak in a few longer lunches this week to knock out some stuff.  Once we finish purging stuff really all that is left to do is paint the trim in our dining room and living room and put mulch in the flower beds.  I would also like to paint the master bathroom but at the same time I don't necessarily think that it will be a make or break item for selling the house. 

My real drop dead goal is to have my personal to-do list done by May 2 so that our realtor can come the first week of May and hopefully start helping me properly stage the house and take pictures to get things listed or at the very least give us her list of things we have missed.  

Wish me luck!

It only took 10 years

 After 10 years stationed in Norfolk, VA we are finally headed to another base.  We are waiting on hard copies of our orders so I don't want to jinx us by telling the entire interwebz where we are going just yet but I feel confident enough to say we are leaving Hampton Roads in a just a couple of short months.

The reality hasn't hit yet.  I am feeling extremely overwhelmed and stressed and anxious all at once.  I realized Friday that we have lived here longer than I lived in Louisville - yet I still call Louisville home.  In fact, we have lived here longer than I have lived anywhere else in my life.

I am going to attempt to properly document our adventure via this blog, Twitter, and Instagram but I am horrible at all of those things so no promises :) 

Here is a sneak peak of how I started this weekend - overwhelmed by the prospect of purging all of the excess crap we have accumulated over the years and trying to figure out what we need to do.  

I took forever to fall asleep Friday night, then Saturday morning I woke up a full hour before anyone else in the house.   I laid in bed for over 45 minutes then my bladder won and I rolled out of bed to get a start on the day.   We had work to do after all.  I needed all of the healthy things and caffeine to motivate me.   

After taking my vitamins and downing a Spark I snuck downstairs for a few minutes of quiet time before the baby (ok he's over 1.5 but he's still MY baby) woke up and wanted breakfast.   After I made breakfast for Little Dude Adam and I put together a basic gameplan for what we think we need to do.  I'm sure we will find out this week once we get hard copy orders and talk to the Navy movers etc. that we are doing it all wrong but at least I feel better having a checklist to work from until we are told otherwise. 

Saturday afternoon we went through our living room and cleared out all of Little Dudes toys and books, our DVD's and other entertainment type stuff, knick knacks, junk that had accumulated in the coat closet and other miscellaneous junk and took our first load of donations to the thrift store.  

Sunday morning I once again woke up before everyone else.  My anxiety was much more in check but I still felt the overwhelming need to get busy.  So much to do and so little time! I took care of our regular weekend kitchen cleaning while I waited on Adam and Little Dude to wake up and went out to our storage shed to get pictures of my bike and a garden tiller that we knew we weren't taking with us and posted them for sale on Facebook marketplace (both sold today by the way!) Once Adam and Little Dude were up we made breakfast then our favorite baby sitter Miss F came to help with Little Dude for the day. 

Little Dude loves Miss F so much, he might love her more than he does me!  When she left he just stood at the front door crying for a few minutes then had to have cuddles to calm down.  

Adam and I spent the day in our bedroom pulling out all of our clothes and starting to purge the items we won't need/don't want etc.  In addition to moving to a different local since I have already spent over a year working remotely thanks to COVID we believe I will be able to keep my job and work from our new location (My boss has given his OK but he is getting approval from the powers above him) which means my more casual wardrobe will be more permanent so I was able to get rid of easily 1/2 of my closet. In the end we took another 5 bags of clothes to the Thrift Store Sunday evening when we were done.  

This week should be my last super hellish - why did I decide to become an accountant weeks of the "busy" season.  I may have left public accounting but any accountant who works for a large company and tells you they don't have a "busy season" is lying.  Some businesses it's a couple of weeks quarterly others it's a couple of months annually but everyone has it.   

I'm hoping I'll be able to get through a few things in Little Dudes room this week and finish up the loose ends in our room but with wrapping up things for work I'm not sure if that is really going to happen. 

Next weekend we want to be able to do the minor household repairs that need to be made before we list our house for sale.  Specifically we need to paint some trim work, put mulch in the flower beds, and paint the master bathroom.  I would also really like it if we could get our bedroom 100% finished/purged and get Little Dudes room done but I may be a little overzealous in that goal.

Wish me luck!

Starting a New School (Daycare) During a Global Pandemic

 Since a lot of kids are in the process of going back to school right now and I know that looks very different from last year for all of them wether they are going back for in person instruction or virtual learning or some sort of hybrid model due to the current pandemic I thought I would take a moment to talk about our decision to not only send Little Dude back to daycare but to start at a completely new facility in June during what we thought at the the time was the height of the pandemic for our area.  

The daycare that Little Dude attended in Virginia Beach from the time he was 11 weeks old until he was approximently 8 months old (with a brief hiatus when we had to go back to Kentucky to help my mom while she recovered from surgery) was perfectly fine.  I loved the diversity in students and staff and very much liked the way they were set up for infant care.  They allowed me to use cloth diapers and glass bottles and gave great daily reports about how Little Dude had spent his day.  

However there were 2 things I really did not like about this center - first and foremost they had an open floor plan with all ages other than infants separated by half walls at most and with 4 year olds and up in the same area together (the center also offers before and after care so there were 4 year olds in the same space as 7 or 8 year olds).  While not an inherently bad thing it is not a set up I would choose for my child to be in daily; specifically I would walk in sometimes and a child who had learned a new 4 letter word would be using it loudly so that all of the other children were now learning a 4 letter word, while my husband and I certainly drop our share of F bombs I don't want my child to learn those words sooner than necessary.  Second, and perhaps more importantly, the center does not allow parents to provide their childs food, all children must eat the food provided by the center.   While the center serves a perfectly fine USDA menu similar to what I had when I was in school my husband and I don't necessarily agree with these guidelines (more on that later) so for these two reasons we had left Little Dude on the waiting list at a couple of other daycares that we like more than the one he was at in VB in hopes that something would open up before he was too far into solid foods.

Luckily for us a global pandemic happened and Little Dude was home with me starting in mid-March before he was really eating more than vegetables at daycare and I had full control over the food he ate daily.  

Working from home with an infant is not easy, even though he was only really army crawling and not getting into things yet it was tough juggling giving him the attention he needed and getting my work done.  Many nights I would log back on after putting Little Dude to bed or be feeding him dinner in my office while I continued to work because trying to juggle being a full time single mom (remember hubby was deployed until mid June) with being a full time work from home employee was tough.   

In the beginning of May I realized that Little Dude was starting to need more hands on attention than I could provide and still get work done, so I called in reinforcements, my mom came to stay with me for a little over 2 weeks and I was able to bust my butt and get reasonably caught up with my work.  I knew it would still be tough working from home once she left but we had a general idea that hubby would be home soon and I knew once he came home worst case I could make up the time I needed to stay caught up with my job in the evenings after he came home from work.  

Luck was on my side though.  The day my mom left my phone rang and it was Lincoln's daycare, they had a spot available for him if I wanted it.  I didn't have to take it and I could keep my spot on the wait list until another spot opened up but I could start as early as the next Monday if I wanted.   

I talked with the daycare director about the steps they were taking to mitigate COVID-19 risks and decided that the best option for my mental health, Little Dude's development, and our family as a whole was to send him to daycare.  While there was certainly a higher risk having him at daycare than having him at home I was impressed by the steps the school was already taking and decided that it was worth the risk for us.  

Little Dude has now been at daycare for almost 3 months and there hasn't been a single red flag.  They center has not had any cases of COVID among the students, staff, or had any reported related to the immediate households that any students are part of.  I am a little extra concerned right now as school is starting back up since the center is integrated with a K-12 school but they are even taking extra steps to protect students there by limiting interactions between grades, using different entrances for various grade levels and keeping staff assigned by age range (daycare, K-2, 3-5, 6-8, and 9-12) and keeping lunches in classrooms.  

Overall I think that it is a tough decision that parents are having to make and that each of us has to make the best decision we can for our families while balancing the risk of exposure against work obligations, technology access, developmental and social needs of the child, and mental health of all involved.  I even have one friend who has enrolled her youngest in a private school so that he can attend in person starting day 1 this year while keeping her daughter home for virtual learning through the public schools simply because the children have different personalities and needs and she felt that was the best option for each kid.  

It's tough being a parent and I want all of you to know that as long as you make the best decision you can with the information available in the moment you aren't doing anything wrong and you are a great mom/dad for your kid.  

 

Care Packages During Deployments

 Do you ever wonder the best way to send a care package to a deployed service member?  Or wonder what to send?  I don't necessary know about other branches but with deployed sailors in the US Navy the answer is simple...AMAZON PRIME!  

Last time my husband deployed I did  great job of sending a flat rate box full of goodies every month.  I took joy in making trips to the store to pick out items to send, decorating and filling the box, and going to the post office to drop it in the mail.  The USPS does a great job of making sending care packages as easy as possible, they even have a great kit you can order delivered straight to your house of shipping supplies. You can even order the kit here it comes with boxes, tape, address labels, and even customs forms.  

But here's the thing, this deployment I had a new baby, traveled to help take care of my mom after she had surgery, and then COVID-19 struck and I tried to avoid unnecessary trips to public places...so Amazon became my saving grace as a wife.  

Here are the perks of using Amazon to send your deployment care packages:

1. Free Shipping
2. Ability to send exactly what your service member needs without pressure to fill a specific size box
3. Flat rate boxes are all the same size and shape and therefore stack nicely, meaning they are usually bundled on the same pallet.  If a mail drop gets cut short guess which pallets have to wait until the next mail drop, that's right the ones that are nothing but flat rate boxes of care packages
4. If an order doesn't arrive in a reasonable amount of time Amazon will give you your money back, one of my orders for my husband (that I ordered in February) was split into two packages.  One package arrived in late March, the second package was just delivered to his office this week.  Amazon refunded the purchase price of the items in the second package in April when I submitted a claim that it wasn't delivered.  While flat rate boxes do include insurance the filing process with the USPS for your insurance claim is probably a little more difficult than just clicking a button in your Amazon account.

So all in all I realized that I did not totally fail as a wife this deployment with the care packages and hopefully others will take this to know that it's ok if you just use the ease of online shopping to send your loved ones the things they need.  Service members love getting cards from their kids and things from home but sometimes when they ask for a specific brand of granola bars it really is better to spend the extra $2 from Amazon and just order it on the spot. 

I have a 1 year old

How in the world has it already been a year since I had my sweet Little Dude.   The past year has truly been a crazy ride but overall I am loving motherhood.  

Little Dude has been through a lot in his short life; but hopefully that means he will be a resilient adult who is able to roll with things when life decides to punch him in the face.  Here is a brief overview of what Little Dude has been through in the past year:

-A very dramatic entrance into this world followed by a 4 day stay in the NICU

-Coming home to a house with 3 puppies who love to bark whenever someone walks on the porch and scare the poor baby

-Daddy being deployed for almost 8 months

-A flight to Kentucky followed by a road trip to Indiana and Illinois with a flight back to Virginia from Kentucky to meet all of mommy and daddy's friends and family members

-Daycare

-Another flight to Kentucky

-A week hanging out in the lobby of a hospital with a constant rotation of people watching him so mommy could take care of grandma

-5 weeks at a different daycare in the middle of rural Kentucky while mommy continued helping grandma and tried to work from grandmas house

-5 more flights to/from Virginia/Kentucky while at Grandmas

-A 12+ hour one way roadtrip from Virginia to Kentucky then back again at the end of the stay at Grandmas with 3 dogs in the car

-Going back to his first daycare

-The start of a global pandemic and hanging out with mommy while she tries to work from home for approximently 2 months

-A third daycare, still during a global pandemic but with lots of extra cleaning and safety precautions

-Daddy coming home from daycare

But at least now we get to have cake!!!

And this sweet boy even gave me a gift for his birthday and slept through the night last night for the first time!!!!

Back to the "real" Navy

Today my husband returns to the "real" Navy.  Not surprisingly, this blog is also returning to its roots of being a milspouse blog in a lot of ways.   

For the past 4ish years hubby has been on shore duty in an office building and exempt from overnight watch.  This means that for 4+ years I have had my husband home every night, usually at a fairly reasonable hour AND not had any concerns about deployments or underways to deal with.  

All of that changes today.  Approximately 53 days before I have our first child my dear sweet hubby is back on a boat, back to the real navy, and preparing to go underway.  Luckily he should be home for the birth of our son but we are looking at a deployment in the near future.   

Here's to adjusting to being a mom, and being a single mom, and having a deployed husband all at the same time - it's the roller coaster we signed up for!  Wish me luck :) 

Writing a birth plan

During my last visit with my doula she encouraged Hubby and I to start working on our birth plan.  She said most people's birth plans are these giant long narratives that doctors may or may not read so she recommended if we take that route that we give the long narrative to our doctor in advance then take a bullet point one page list and/or visual birth plan with us to delivery.
I of course am totally not the long narrative type of girl - So we are starting with bullet points and planning on having a visual birth plan in the delivery room.

What is a visual birth plan was my first question - a visual birth plan is this amazing one page picto-graph with images that represent the different interventions you do and do not want to incorporate in your childbirth experience baring any unexpected complications.   I had never heard of this magic before but I am so excited to incorporate a visual birth plan into our delivery experience.  I am such a visual person and not a narrative person I think this is exactly what I need. 

I'm still researching the different visual birth plan templates to figure out which one offers me more of what I want but I do plan to post my actual plan on here once it is done.  For now these are the different templates I am looking at.

http://www.visualbirthplanbuilder.com/

https://visualbirthplanner.com/

https://www.mamanatural.com/birth-plan-template/

I'm leaning towards the Mama Natural one because I love her book and other resources.

So what about you? Have you ever heard of a visual birth plan? Did you have a birth plan? What kind of birth plan did you utilize? Did your labor and delivery go according to the plan? 

Journey to Pregnancy number 2 - abbreviated version

So I actually have more background posts from my original infertility blog, but I kind of want to skip over those and just give more of the facts and general timeline that have brought us from 2014 to 2019 or at least to where I feel like things started to change.
After I miscarried in 2014 my body acted normal for a brief period of time before going super wacky again.  I ended up going back to the specialist and received a formal diagnosis of PCOS.  I then had a second surgery to remove another polyp from my uterus.  Silly me I thought the second surgery would work like the first one and once the growth was removed by body would work like it was supposed to and I would be able to get pregnant again, but this time that wasn't the case.
After multiple long (VERY LONG) cycles, failed IUI attempts, and just generally becoming jaded with traditional medicine I decided to take things into my own hands and advocate for my own health.  It was during this time I started my infertility blog and eventually discovered Restorative Reproductive Medicine.
While I never consulted directly with a restorative MD I did dive very far down the natural and holistic rabbit hole.  I started by removing chemicals from our house, even though I was already eating fairly "healthy" I took things a step further, I started using essential oils and eventually, I got over my fear of the woo-woo needles and went to a Traditional Chinese Medicine Doctor/Acupuncturist who a friend recommended and had used to during infertility treatments a few years prior.   
The combination of these changes seemed to work.  After just 2 acupuncture treatments my period started without using any drugs to induce it and since then it remained normal, if on the long side of what would traditionally be considered a normal cycle.   I was finally able to tell what my body was telling me and could identify when something was outside of my personal normal.

I finally got around to reading the book Taking Charge of Your Fertility and realized that by not buying it sooner I had done myself a huge disservice.

While I was doing all of this my husband was working on his health as well.  A friend introduced him to Spartan races and he decided that he loved the challenge.  He let me do my hippie dippy thing and get rid of all the unnatural ingredients in our house and even decided he like the new essential oils we were using.   He even read the research I gave him about removing chemicals from our hot tub and let me switch out the pseudo-natural products we were using for Thieves cleaner based on information I found on a few different websites.  (Which let me add I will happily talk about later because the Thieves works so much better!)

As a result of these changes we both started feeling better and at the end of 2017 I told him if he could get our friends to do it I would like to run a Spartan race with him in 2018, which is exactly what I did.   But I feel like that is a story for next week.

Exhaustion

Over the weekend my husband ran an 8K and a Half Marathon.   You would think that that means that he is super exhausted today and absolutely worn out, strangely enough I think I'm more tired than he is.
My husband did not train for these races, but he is a natural runner and did really well.  He loves to run and has ran a lot of races over the years, some better than others and he has ran various lengths and at different frequencies.  This weekend's race we a bit of a last minute decision but he had fun.
I don't think I've realized until now how much of a toll the extra weight I have gained so far has taken on my body.  My feet are more sore than they should be given the amount I walked/stood, my back aches, and I'm super exhausted.  Also my knees keep popping and even my neck is tight.  I have a chiropractor appointment tomorrow and I'm sure that will fix a lot of the neck and back stuff my the feet might be something I need to be more careful about for the rest of this pregnancy.
Overall this weekend really has made me understand more about how people who are truly overweight or obese and try to get more active in order to loose weight feel.  If two mornings of cheering for my husband while he raced could take that toll on my body, how much more painful must it be to walk 10,000 steps or stand for an hour when you have an extra 40 or 50 or even more pounds on your body.
I'm also taking this as my sign that I need to up my activity level daily throughout the end of this pregnancy so that I can be as healthy as possible when it comes time to push.
Wish me luck!

The Power of a Praying Wife

For my first focus of the Lenten season I am reading The Power of a Praying Wife by Stormie Omartian.  My intention is to read one chapter per day, so today I will be reading chapter 4.   I am very impressed by Stormie's straightforward approach and the way she speaks straight to the reader, be they the wife of a devout Christian or of an Atheist.   I find myself relating to a lot of the points she makes (who hasn't prayed for their husband to change and start putting his socks in the laundry basket on his own, or spoken to him out of anger instead of love?) and am going to make a concentrated effort to pray for him in the right way and let God bless our marriage in the way he intends for it to be blessed.   I'm really excited to finish the book and may even read ahead.

Here is an image of the book cover/link to it on Amazon if you are interested:


There is also an edition specifically for military wives, be they the wives of AD service members or service members themselves which is available for free through many military chaplains.

St Patricks Day, deployment style

Happy St Patrick’s Day!

So apparently my hubby had fun on St Patricks Day. Before he left we bought this stupid hat at WalMart and he claimed he would wear it all day. I rolled my eyes but it was only $3 so I bought it for him expecting him to forget it was even in his rack or leave it at home. Yesterday I got this picture from him. Apparently he really did wear it all day Sorry for the poor quality, since his name showed and some other guys were in it i had to open it in paint brush from my work computer to edit slightly don’t want to be posting peoples pics on my blog without their permission!

Happy Navyversary

Since I am scheduling this post to go up at 0:01, today marks one year since Adam left for boot camp. We are currently arguing whether today marks 1 year or tomorrow but I say today since today is the anniversary of the day he stood up and held his hand up high and said I pledge allegiance to the flag or something like that :)

I cannot believe it has been a year already. At the same time so much has happened over the past year that I can’t believe it has only been one year! Lets recap:

Adam joined the Navy (just in case you missed that little tidbit)

I ran a 5K with @sespi from And You Never Did Think 

The 5K was inspired by our friends @minivangirl and @justplainj Minivangirl's blog who were trying to raise money to get a service dog for their daughter Faith. (for more on that story visit Pepsi Pups very interesting things have happened!)

Adam graduated boot camp (again, just in case you missed it!)

I started working on my MBA

Adam went to undesignated A-school since he is color blind and smart they didn’t have any jobs there were willing to assign him to.

Adam graduated A-school (apparently this was REALLY hard //sarcasm)

Adam moved to Norfolk, I stayed in GA

I felt guilty for staying in GA

I started looking for jobs in Norfolk secretly

My boss got a new job that was too good to turn down

I got a new boss who was super nice & talented

New boss commented on how amazed she was that I could stay that far way from hubby

People at work started telling me I needed to leave because they could tell I missed my hubby

I started looking for jobs in Norfolk openly

I interviewed and applied and talked with head hunters until I thought I was going to have to move without a job and just look from here (which would have been MUCH easier)

I got an email that wasn’t a job offer but they wanted to contact me in early spring about a position they were anticipating being open if I hadn’t found something else

I though, bull shit I must really suck

I GOT A JOB OFFER! From a great company, with great benefits (I even have a pension, who still offers pensions????)

I moved to VA, with a job, while trying to help out sorority land train my temp. replacement as well as I could via email/phone/text

I started my job, working with really nice people, doing really interesting accounting stuff with debt (as in corporate bonds, which I know very little about) and investments (as in stocks & interest bearing accounts which I know more about)

Started thinking about my CPA again and researching review material b/c a lot has changed since 2007

I got an email from the first company saying the position had come open and asking if I wanted to come in and chat, of course I responded with thanks but found a job and like it so far—was told, point blank if I stay in the area but ever leave here to call them. (WOW guess I didn’t suck!)

Became an officer of the local Phi Mu Alumnae chapter

Became philanthropy advisor for the Phi Mu Chapter at William & Mary

Finally learned how to spell the word philanthropy right on the first try

Been proven right that the anniversary is indeed today (thank you military id expiration date and enlistment orders!)

The crazy thing is everything from the job offer on has happened in the past 2.5 months! Never mind all of the things that can’t really be put on a timeline all of the new people I have met and things I have learned, the slight changes in our dogs (yes I know they’re dogs but they’re my kids!) it has been an absolutely amazing year.

I thought that in celebration f my 1 year Navyspousaversary I would have a giveaway of some sort but I’m really not that great at keeping up with my blog so I’m pretty sure that at this point I have about 2 followers who actually read my blog and of those 2 followers I’m betting maybe 1 would enter a giveaway…so instead, I am going to make a $50 donation to a charity of my followers choice from the following options (each of these organizations have full profiles available under the “Support Our Troops” section of Charity Navigator and has an overall rating of 50 or higher)

National Military Family Association

National Military Family Association is the only national organization that for more than 40 years has represented officer and enlisted families of the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps, Coast Guard, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and Public Health Service. We help those seeking resources for: themselves and combat-weary service members returning home from war with fragile mental heath, for optimistic-but-anxious children separated from parents during deployments, for spouses forging ahead with educations to build better lives for their families or to prepare for the unthinkable, for widows seeking information about benefits available to them as they cope with their losses, and for proud parents of single service members. We identify and work with others to resolve emerging military family-related issues.

Operation Homefront

Operation Homefront provides emergency assistance and morale to our troops, to the families they leave behind, and to wounded warriors when they return home. Operation Homefront leads more than 4,500 volunteers in 30 chapters nationwide. Since its inception, Operation Homefront has provided critical assistance to more than 105,000 military families in need. Some of our most outstanding accomplishments are: more than 5 million dollars provided to military families in crises; goods and services valued at more than 6.5 million dollars to assist military families; and an excess of 20,000 care packages delivered to soldiers abroad with an additional 2,500 packages delivered to military families at home.

American Red Cross

Since its founding in 1881 by visionary leader Clara Barton, the American Red Cross has been the nation's premier emergency response organization. As part of a worldwide movement that offers neutral humanitarian care to the victims of war, the American Red Cross distinguishes itself by also aiding victims of devastating natural disasters. Over the years, the organization has expanded its services, always with the aim of preventing and relieving suffering. Today, in addition to domestic disaster relief, the American Red Cross offers compassionate services in five other areas: community services that help the needy; support and comfort for military members and their families; the collection, processing and distribution of lifesaving blood and blood products; educational programs that promote health and safety; and international relief and development programs.

USO

The USO (United Service Organizations) is a congressionally chartered, nonprofit organization, and is not a part of the federal government. Since 1941, the USO mission has remained the same: to provide morale, welfare and recreation-type services to service members and their families. The USO currently operates more than 135 centers worldwide, including ten mobile canteens located in the continental United States and overseas. Overseas centers are located in Germany, Italy, the United Arab Emirates, Japan, Qatar, Korea, Iraq, Afghanistan, Guam, and Kuwait. Service members and their families visit USO centers more than 6.9 million times each year. Services include free Internet and e-mail access, libraries and reading rooms, housing assistance, family crisis counseling, support groups, game rooms and nursery facilities.

Disabled American Veterans Charitable Service Trust

The Disabled American Veterans (DAV) Charitable Service Trust supports physical and psychological rehabilitation programs, meets the special needs of veterans with specific disabilities - such as amputation and blindness - and aids and shelters homeless veterans. Programs supported by the Trust target several groups of physically and psychologically disabled veterans. Key programs include: helping to maintain a volunteer-operated transportation network providing rides to sick and disabled veterans needing transportation to and from VA medical centers for treatment; providing food and shelter and connecting homeless and needy veterans to essential medical care, VA benefits counseling and job training; supporting significant therapeutic initiatives; and many more.

Wounded Warrior Project

The mission of Wounded Warrior Project is to honor and empower wounded warriors. Our purpose is: to raise awareness and enlist the public's aid for the needs of severely injured service men and women; to help severely injured service members aid and assist each other; and to provide unique, direct programs and services to meet the needs of severely injured service members.

Navy-Marine Corps Relief Society

Founded in 1904, the Navy-Marine Corps Relief Society operates nearly 250 offices ashore and afloat at Navy and Marine Corps bases throughout the world. The mission of the Navy-Marine Corps Relief Society is to provide, in partnership with the Navy and Marine Corps, financial, educational, and other assistance to members of the Naval Services of the United States, eligible family members, and survivors when in need. We are committed to ensure that all available resources are used to assist personnel of the Naval Services - active, retired, and their eligible family members - to achieve financial self-sufficiency and find solutions to emergency needs.

The Fisher House Foundation

The Fisher House Foundation program is a unique private-public partnership that supports America's military in their time of need. The program recognizes the special sacrifices of our men and women in uniform and the hardships of military service by meeting a humanitarian need beyond that normally provided by the Departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs. There is at least one Fisher House at every major military medical center to assist families in need and to ensure that they are provided with the comforts of home in a supportive environment. Annually, the Fisher House program serves more than 10,000 families, and have made available nearly 2.5 million days of lodging to family members since the program originated in 1990.

So—Place your vote now, I will make the donation when I pay bills next weekend so voting will end in exactly 1 week at 0:01 on March 29.

Voting is available on the sidebar of my blog so if you are reading this through Google Reader or whatever visit shanonrenee.blogspot.com directly.

Milspouse Friday Fill-In#63

Look at me being a team player and participating!   It has been forever!!!!

The best part of October was Getting to see my husband .

The worst part of October was The stress of working tons of hours and trying to find a job.

For Halloween, I’ll be Myself, driving from VA to GA.

I hope that in November  I will find a job I like in VA .

Wifey has posted MilSpouse Secret Santa. I  will  be participating and will buy my person the best present ever.

Four Days!

In my short time as a milspouse I have learned that countdowns are always looming...everyone is constantly counting down to something, days until the next deployment, days until this deployment is over, days until we PCS, days until we get out!  It seems like everyone has a ticker somewhere counting down.
A few days ago I was talking to a friend and mentioned that I really wanted last week to hurry up and be over with because I get to go visit Adam this week.  She asked me if I ever feel like I am wishing my life away by constantly counting down for the next event.  Since Adam enlisted I have counted down:

Days until he moved to Louisville temporarily

Days until he left for boot camp

Days until graduation

Days until A-School was over

Days until he went to Norfolk

Days until I could visit the first time

Days until I can visit this week

AND I am already counting

Days until the boat Christmas Party

Days until the boat leaves the shipyard

Days until the boat is deployable for humanitiarian efforts

Days until the boat is rumored to deploy

Days until Adam can strike for a rate

The list goes on and on.  Her question really got me thinking though. Am I really wishing my life away?  I don't think so.  If anything having these constant count downs has made me appreciate the days more.  Plus is it really any different from before he enlisted?  Then I was counting down days until the weekend, Christmas, trips to visit grandma, graduation, my birthday...Now I am just counting down different things. 

Needless to say my current counter is down to four days!  Thursday after work I get to head to Norfolk for a long weekend with my husband.  Yes he has to work but at least I get to spend every night with him and a couple of days full of sun, sand, and laughter. :)


PS-Have you entered my giveaway? It ends next week!

Back to School Giveaway

How would you like a wall hanging honoring YOU?

I made these super cute signs (?) for some friends over the summer and thought that some of my blog followers would like one as all.  The one pictures was the first one I made so I promise that yours will be centered properly :) The poem on the sign is "The Military Wife"

When the Lord was creating a military wife He ran into His sixth day of overtime. An angel appeared and said, "You're having a lot of trouble with this one. What's wrong with the standard model?"

The Lord replied, "Have you seen the specs on this order? It has to be completely independent but must always be sponsored to get on a military installation. It must have the qualities of both mother and father during deployments, be a perfect host to 4 or 40, handle emergencies without an instruction manual, cope with flu and moves all around the world, have a kiss that cures anything from a child's bruised knee to a husband's weary days, have the patience of a saint when waiting for its mate to come home and, have six pairs of hands."

The angel shook her head slowly and said, "Six pairs of hands? No way." The Lord answered, "Don't worry; we will make other military wives to help. Besides, it's not the hands that are causing the problem, it's the heart. It must swell with pride, sustain the ache of numerous separations while remaining true, beat soundly even when it feels too tired to do so, be large enough to say 'I understand' when it doesn't, and say 'I love you', regardless.

"Lord," said the angel, gently touching His sleeve. "Go to bed. You can finish it tomorrow." "I can't," said the Lord. "I'm so close to creating something quite unique. Already it can heal itself when sick, on a moment’s notice it will willingly embrace and feed total strangers who have been stranded during a PCS move and it can wave goodbye to its husband understanding why he had to leave."

The angel circled the model of the military wife very slowly. "It's too soft," she sighed.

"But tough," the Lord said excitedly. "You cannot imagine what this being can do or endure."

"Can it think?" asked the angel. "Can it think?! It can convert 1400 to 2 p.m.," replied the Lord.

Finally the angel bent over and ran her finger across the cheek. "There's a leak," she said. "I told you that you were trying to put too much into this model." It's not a leak," said the Lord. "It's a tear." "What's it for?" asked the angel. "It's for joy, sadness, pain, loneliness and pride." "You're a genius," said the angel.

Looking at her somberly, the Lord replied, "I didn't put it there."

How to enter:

First-Comment on this post (1 entry) with your military branch and what color you would like the canvas background to be.  Please leave some way I can contact you (link to your blog, twitter username etc) or send an email to shanonrenee@gmail.com and let me know who you are so that I can contact you when the winner is announced.

Addtional entries:

Blog about this giveaway (1 entry) comment on this blog with a link to your blog post

Tweet about this giveaway with a link to this entry and mention me (@shanonrenee) (1 entry per day) comment on this blog to let me know that you tweeted and include your username.

Are you not a milspouse but have a friend who is, is this not your style but you know someone who would love it?  Feel free to enter for your friends and family, just in your first comment tell me that you are entering for someone else, your connection to them (friend, sister, spouse, daughter etc.) and give their branch and background color (or pick a color for them!)

The giveaway ends on 8/31 at midnight and the winner will be announced no later than 9/4 I will try to do it sooner though! 

Good Luck!

Milspouse Friday Fillin #49

It's that time again and I'm back on the bandwagon!  Time for the MilSpouse Friday Fillin

From Wifey:
I love learning more about my fellow MilSpouse bloggers! MilSpouse Friday Fill-in took off even better than I could have ever hoped. I learned so much about my fellow bloggers and can’t wait to learn more… and hopefully even MORE will join in as we continue.
Here’s the skinny for newcomers about MilSpouse Friday Fill-ins (and when I say MilSpouse, I mean significant others, too!):
Each week, I’ll post a list of questions on Thursday (so you can have your blog ready on Friday). Come back here on Friday and enter your blog post into Mr. Linky so others know who else participated and we can all visit other blogs.  And please feel free to use the button above!

1. If you could have a private concert with any singer, who would it be?  submitted by An Air Force Wife’s Blog
   I would love  to have a private concert with any number of different musicians.  I think I would probably have to vote for Uncle Kracker because I could never handle the pot smoke at one of their real concerts but I saw them live at a radio station sponsored show once and I loved listening to their music.
2. Is there anything you do to supplement your family’s income? submitted by Our Life, One Adventure at a Time
   I work, I have always worked.  I'm actual a little nervous that there will come a time when I can't work before we have kids.  I know kids will keep me busy but when Six Flags closed and I was unemployed for a month I went bonkers...I also mystery shop...but that is more free stuff/food than income because I don't do it very much. 
3. During your pregnancy (whether past, present, or future), what did you nickname your unborn baby before you knew the sex? submitted by Explosions of Love
   Knowing my husband our baby will be nicknamed something really loving--like parasite... 
4. Have you ever won a blog giveaway?  If so what did you win? submitted by Mrs. O’s Life
   I have won three, my first was a puppy snuggie from Bethany @ Canines and Cadences, the second was a super cute "flirty apron" from A Giveaway Everyday and the third was a Scentsy warmer and 2 bars from Lauren @ Young but not (completely) dumb.
5.  If I looked into your refrigerator right now, what would I find? submitted by Married to the Army
    I have a gallon of milk, some cheese, about 15 fruit duos (they were $1.25 each @ Kroger this week and a $1.00 off coupon on them this week!) a couple of Herizon milk boxes (Vanilla Yum!) and I'm honestly not sure what else, I really need to clean it out!
   
   
   In related news apparently since I linked my amazon account to my blog to monetize on the Amazon Associates program gives me a search bar to I guess program results related to my post.  I searched for "Wife Gifts" and the results were all porn related...